Kirby headed to Hall of Fame

Olney's Rob Kirby will be inducted into the University of Southern Indiana Athletic Hall of Fame on February 8 during a ceremony in Evansville.

By Justin Hatten

Olney's Rob Kirby will be inducted into the University of Southern Indiana Athletic Hall of Fame on February 8 during a ceremony in Evansville.

Kirby, a Spanish teacher and girls track-and-field coach at East Richland High School, ran for USI from 1987-92. He earned All-American honors in 1990 after placing 29th at the NCAA Division II Cross Country Championships in California with a 10K time of 30:59, sixth-best in USI history.

"That's a funny story," Kirby said of garnering All-American accolades (top-25 runners). "That's when foreigners really started coming over but they couldn't be All-American. I was 29th and had to wait four hours after the race to realize there was a fourth foreigner ahead of me."

Kirby was a two-time All-Great Lakes Valley Conference cross-country selection (1989 and 1990) and finished 12th in the 10,000-meter finals as a fifth-year senior at the 1992 NCAA Division II Track-and-Field Championships in Texas.

"I had a great time at Southern Indiana," said Kirby, the sixth USI runner to secure a spot in the Hall of Fame. "I had wonderful teammates and coach (Bill) Stegemoller was like a second father to me.

"If it wasn't for my own running, I wouldn't have the knowledge to coach high school."

Kirby won the 1994 Saint Jude Memphis Marathon, placed 26th in the 1995 Twin Cities Marathon at Minneapolis, Minn., and started the 1999 Chicago Marathon but got injured at the 18-mile mark and could not finish. He ran a time of 2:22.33 at Memphis and 2:26.05 at Minneapolis.

"Running in my 20s, I had a really good career and I spent my 30s being injured," said the 43-year-old Kirby.